IMMIGRATION: Obama seeks $3.7 billion to deal with border kids

Immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally stand in line last month for tickets at the bus station after they were released from a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility in McAllen, Texas.

$1.1 billion

The White House emergency immigration request seeks:

For the Department of Homeland Security to help deter border-crossers and increase enforcement. That would include $879 million to pay for detention and removal of adults traveling with children, to provide additional detention space for those individuals, and to speed up the prosecution of adults who cross the border unlawfully with children.

For Customs and Border Protection to cover overtime costs and for additional facilities to detain unaccompanied children while they are in Border Patrol custody. It also includes nearly $40 million to increase air surveillance, such as drone flights along the border.

For the Department of Justice, with much of the money spend on hiring 40 additional teams of immigration judges. The White House says that together with a previous request for 35 additional teams, the system would be able to process an additional 55,000 to 75,000 cases annually.

For the Department of Health and Human Services for the care of unaccompanied children, including shelter and medical care.

What's next?

As lawmakers return to Washington this week from a weeklong recess, President Obama's spending request is set to be a focus, with the Senate Appropriations Committee scheduling a hearing to examine it.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday asked Congress for emergency spending of $3.7 billion to deal with the wave of unaccompanied Central American children crossing the southern border that has overwhelmed immigration resources.

But the announcement was unlikely to satisfy protesters in Murrieta who have been in the national spotlight since they succeeded last week in turning away a convoy of buses carrying migrants to the Border Patrol station there. Many local anti-illegal immigration protesters blame the Obama administration’s immigration policies for the current crisis and are demanding nothing short of immediate deportation of the migrants.

More than 50,000 minors have arrived since October, many drawn by rumors that they will be allowed to stay in the U.S. and fleeing violence in their home countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

Though the “humanitarian crisis” the president is trying to alleviate is unfolding hundreds of miles away in Texas and the 140-person group turned away from Murrieta represents just a fraction of the Central American migrants who have crossed the border, some local protesters have embraced the outsized voice the Southwest Riverside County community has had in the national immigration debate in recent days.

Organizer Patrice Lynes, of Temecula, has said she hopes the Murrieta demonstrations will inspire other communities to resist federal immigration policies. In the meantime, Lynes said the protests would continue, lest federal officials send more buses of migrant families to Murrieta in their effort to relieve pressure on the Border Patrol in Texas.

The next group of 140 migrants is expected to arrive by plane in San Diego Thursday morning and protesters will be on the lookout for buses at the Border Patrol station at 10:30 a.m., she said.

“We’re gonna see this through,” Lynes said. “The nation is looking to us. We’re taking a stand to say ‘no.’”

Meanwhile, Inland immigrant-rights advocates were planning a demonstration Wednesday at Murrieta City Hall to support the migrants, whom they described as refugee families, and to call for President Obama and the Department of Homeland Security “to respect their right to due process amidst this humanitarian crisis.”

A news release said the 6 p.m. event would be “a quiet, prayerful vigil, welcoming the immigrant families into our community” and encouraged participants to bring donations of food, clothing and other basic necessities for the migrants.

'AGGRESSIVE APPROACH'

The White House said Tuesday that the proposed emergency spending would improve care for unaccompanied minors during the deportation process, help speed the removal of adults with children by increasing the capacity of immigration courts and increase prosecution of smuggling networks. The money would also increase surveillance at the U.S. border and help Central American countries repatriate border-crossers sent back from the United States.

“We are taking steps to protect due process but also to remove these migrants more efficiently,” a White House official said Tuesday. “We are taking an aggressive approach on both sides of the border.”

Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner, said a “working group on the border crisis” would review the proposal.

“The speaker still supports deploying the National Guard to provide humanitarian support in the affected areas - which this proposal does not address,” Steel said.

The developments all come as President Obama has declared comprehensive immigration legislation dead in Congress and announced plans to proceed on his own by executive action to make whatever fixes he can to the nation’s dysfunctional immigration system.

Join the conversation

Keep it civil and stay on topic. No profanity, vulgarity, racial slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. By posting your comment, you agree to allow Freedom Communications, Inc. the right to republish your name and comment in additional Freedom publications without any notification or payment.